


Hurt

by Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch



Series: Point of No Return Timeline (Emotional Solangelo) [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, M/M, Will gets hurt, hurt/comfort except heavy on the hurt and the comfort comes later in the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15062756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch/pseuds/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch
Summary: Will and Nico bicker a lot. Most of the tie its inconsequential, but when it not, it's not.





	Hurt

Nico wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t, because the blood dripping down from the cut on Will’s hand, soaking his white shirt where he had it cradled against his chest, didn’t look real. None of this was real.

“Don’t panic,” Will said. “It’s just a cut.”

Nico _wasn’t_ panicking.

Will tried to reach for the nectar, which had spilled out of the box he’d been carrying. Blood dripped to the floor, splashing into interesting patterns. Nico blinked and tried to focus past how red it was. How much of it there was.

“It’s a bad cut granted,” Will said slightly breathlessly. His eyelashes fluttered as he took a steadying breath. “But it is just a cut.”

“You should have been more careful,” Nico snapped. He was impressed he’d managed to bite the words out at all beyond his clenched jaw. “You’re never careful.”

Will fixed him with a stare which might have been more impressive if he wasn’t pale and swaying slightly.

“Are you okay?” Nico amended. “Shall I get Kayla?”

Will shook his head, having successfully dragged the box of supplies over to him, and extracted a bottle of nectar and a Tupperware of ambrosia. Nico watched with interest as Will struggled with the lid on the bottle, apparently giving up on the Tupperware before he’d started.

“You are so stubborn,” Nico murmured and took it off for him. In fairness to Will, when he drank some of the ambrosia the blood flow did seem to lessen slightly.

“See?”

Nico felt his jaw weld together again because that was hardly the point. He unstuck it enough to bite out: “I still think I should run down and get Kayla to –“

“No!”

Nico drew back. He’d heard Will snap before, but he’d never heard Will snap with that kind of venom.

“Leave it Nico,” Will said in more normal tones. Then, when Nico didn’t seem close to leaving it at all. “I mean it, just drop it. I’m fine.”

“You just got sliced to ribbons because you thought it would be a good idea to try and stop a sword with your hand,” Nico pointed out in not normal tones. He didn’t know which of the roiling emotions made his voice an octave higher and tenser than the string of the bow that – if Will absolutely had to stop a sword with something other than the more conventionally used shield – may have been a better choice for defence than his hand.

“Who do you think they were anyway?” Will asked, presumably referring with far too much casualness to the two men who’d jumped them at the camp border.

“I don’t _care_ who they were!” Nico snapped. “Why are you so –?“

He stopped because he had no idea what he was trying to say.

“Whatever,” Will said dismissively, not meeting Nico’s eyes. The blood was slowing almost to a stop now and he found a dressing among the supplies he’d excused himself from camp to buy. He started applying it, still not meeting Nico’s eyes but maybe he had inherited some kind of sixth sense precognition skills from his father because he got pretty quickly that Nico was glaring at him.

“What?”

Nico didn’t think that really needed explaining.

Will’s temper tended to be set on a slower burn than Nico’s but when he sparked, he sparked.

“You could say thank you,” Will said somewhat waspishly. He’d dressed his hand surprisingly well considering he only had one good one and it had been his left. Now his hand was just snowy white. His shirt was still soaked, a red patch that blossomed at heart height.

“ _Thank_ you?” Nico exploded. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down and very clearly and logically explain that he could have countered the attack with his sword, he didn’t need Will protecting him. He didn’t need the nightmares he’d now have to suffer through where the sword didn’t hit Will’s out-flung hand, but his chest.

He needed to calmly and clearly and logically point out that Will’s impulse to stop a sword by throwing out his hand would only work if he were a superhero who had some kind of telekinetic powers that could push the other guy backwards and, that since he wasn’t and didn’t, he was therefore a complete idiot.

 He couldn’t find the words and while his head had been trying his emotions had bypassed calm and settled for furious.

“Why would I thank you? You almost got killed!”

“And you didn’t.”

“He wouldn’t have hit me,” Nico said dismissively.

“You don’t _know_ that!” Will answered, eyes blazing.

“You _don’t_!” he said again when Nico opened his mouth to contest that. “You didn’t even have your sword out.”

Will was, technically, right about the sword, but Nico had dodged the strike.

“I didn’t _need_ my sword.”

Will looked like he seriously doubted that, arms folded tightly and eyes burning.

“You wouldn’t understand; you’re not a fighter,” Nico snapped, fielding any protests Will might give. Will didn’t understand. He didn’t understand at all. You didn’t – you don’t. If he’d lost Will -  

“You should stay in the infirmary where you belong.”

It was Will’s turn to draw back, then he took a step forward again at least ten times angrier than he’d been a moment before.

“I’ve managed to get through several fights without you there holding my hand,” Will retorted. “Not that you’d know, you were busy hiding from camp and playing victim.”

“ _Everybody hates me!”_ he continued in a vicious impersonation of Nico’s voice. “No one hated you, Nico you just hated the thought of actually having to get to know people.”

“You think I’m playing victim?” Nico demanded. “Do you have any idea how many people I’ve had to watch die?”

“Like you’re the only one who has lost people. I’ve had to watch five siblings die,” Will said. “Five Nico.”

“They aren’t really your siblings though,” Nico answered. “I lost _Bianca_ –“

“And you’ve used it as an excuse ever since!”

Will was yelling; Nico felt the ground shudder beneath him and he had to physically stop the hordes of dead shifting beneath his feet from rising. But the anger was starting to feel poisonous in his veins, hollowing him: they’d both gone too far and they both knew it.

Will swallowed, shook his head. He was still blazing, but quietly now. Inwardly. He wouldn’t look at Nico.

“I’m going to get these back to the infirmary,” he said, picking up the box. He still wouldn’t meet Nico’s eyes and Nico had never seen him so closed off.

Nico let him go without argument. He didn’t think there was anything else left to say. They’d both unsheathed their claws, and they’d both hurt.


End file.
